A tragic accident has claimed the life of yet another New York City construction worker. Wilfredo Enrique, 59, fell to his death while installing a facade at 325 Kent Avenue. He was working a development at the site of the former Domino Sugar refinery on the Williamsburg waterfront in Brooklyn. New York has seen a sharp increase in...

In 2016, Port of Oakland construction projects generated a grand total of $6.5 million in earnings for workers. A whopping 60% of those workers were local, significantly exceeding the Port’s 50% local hiring goal. Workers who live in Oakland, Alameda, San Leandro, and Emeryville were responsible for 37% of the total work hours, a...

Elections have consequences, and Michigan workers are about to find that out the hard way. The state House of Representatives has passed two bills that will make it harder for employees to picket and easier for employers to replace striking workers. Both bills passed along party lines, with Republicans supporting the anti-union efforts and...

Michigan Republicans are working overtime to ram home very troubling legislation during the final days of the lame duck session. Despite swirling controversy around the election results, the legislature had the gall this week to move voter suppression legislation – in the form of HB 6066, HB 6067, and HB6068 – through the House:...

In Wisconsin, opponents of the prevailing wage have suggested that a full repeal could result in savings of 44%. But a new report from the Midwest Economic Policy Institute (MEPI) – “Prevailing Wage Repeal Cannot Result in ’44 Percent Savings'” – challenges that assertion. MEPI takes particular issue with a 2015...

Unions? The NLRB? Who needs ’em?! This appears to be the attitude of the new committee leadership under President-elect Donald Trump, which includes Rep. Virginia Foxx (NC), the incoming chair of the congressional panel that oversees labor issues in the House of Representatives: Organized labor has “sort of lost its reason for...

Late last month, a federal judge in Texas issued a preliminary injunction blocking alterations to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) from taking effect. The changes, issued by the Department of Labor (DOL) at the direction of President Obama, would have made millions of American workers eligible for overtime pay. Judge Amos L....

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) released its Performance and Accountability Report for fiscal year 2016. The Commission, whose mission is to “stop and remedy unlawful employment discrimination” in the workplace, secured several hundred million dollars in compensation for thousands of victims of workplace...

Laborers International Union of North America (LiUNA) Local 506 in Toronto is doing its part to reach out to immigrant workers. For some members, that includes training and testing in their native language. “If we get a call for a specific training need, even something we don’t offer all the time, we’ll organize it [&hellip...

During the 2016 campaign season, Donald Trump promised to make a lot of “really great deals.” It’s starting to look like his first one is a bust. Trump is giving $6 million in tax subsidies and $1 million in training grants to Carrier, an Indiana company owned by United Technologies, over 10 years. In exchange,...

Last month, a federal jury found Walmart guilty of intentionally failing to pay the minimum wage to California truck drivers for tasks like washing and inspecting their vehicles. The jury awarded $54 million in damages to the drivers. The lawsuit also accused the retail chain of inadequate compensation for layovers: More than 800 drivers...

Last year, the Ontario government vowed to add an additional $55 million in spending to union apprenticeship programs. Among other things, some of the money was intended to go toward awareness campaigns targeting groups underrepresented in the trades: “There are thousands of young people in high schools who have not thought about a...